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![](slaska09.jpg) Stormy weather lives on |
While planning for the next day's trip, we discussed the fuel situation and
discovered that the original weight & balance includes 30 pounds under
"empty weight", since this is the amount of unusable fuel for this model
172. (42 gallons total, 21 on each side with 2.5 gallons unusable in each
tank). A later weight & balance sheet made up after adding some radios
however, had "re-added" this 30 pounds as a separate category even though
it was included in the "empty weight". This was good news, since this
recalculation would allow us to top off the tanks when re-fueling. When we
found out that Westjet had put in 36 gallons, we decided that tomorrow we
would run one tank dry to prove what the numbers really were, since these
were not adding up very well. Total flying time from Wichita to Rapid City
is 7.3 hours. |
![](slaska10.jpg) Next morning in Rapid City SD (our first overnight) |
The breakfast buffet the next morning was very good and we filled up
knowing it might be a while till lunch. A review of the possible routes
the night before using the GPS had helped us decide to head for Calgary for
the second night. And yes, being this close to Mt. Rushmore, we felt it
deserved a look. After lifting off and turning southwest to the park, Jack
switched to the right tank in accordance with the plan to fly until it was
empty. |
![](slaska11.jpg) Yes, that's Mount Rushmore (not so imposing from 7700 ft) |
Mt. Rushmore is much more impressive from the ground, since the
requested altitude is 7700 feet, and after a couple of turns for photos, we
turned back on our course to the northwest. The first leg was to Harding,
then Baker, Dawson & Glasgow, Montana for lunch (346 miles total). A name
on the map Belle Fourche (Foosh) seemed vaguely familiar, (was this from
the Lonesome Dove movie)?
We used the GPS to determine when we were crossing state lines and got to
do that on the 104 degree longitude across the southwest corner of North
Dakota and then into Montana. It was interesting to note that right next
to Baker, Montana is a small town of Plevna (and I thought that only Kansas
had a Plevna). The next major checkpoint was Dawson VOR (near Glendive)
and at 60 miles approximately another 40 minutes. The winds aloft had
pretty consistently been out of the northwest, (typically a headwind) and
our groundspeed varied from 90-120. |
![](slaska12.jpg) Crossing into Montana |
Passing over Dawson at 12:30 and turning more westerly to Glasgow, we began
to think of the right tank fuel since we had been flying on it about 2 and
one-half hours. (We started the engine that morning at 9:45, took off at
9:55, and switched to the right tank at 10:04) Sure enough, a few minutes
later, the engine skipped a few beats and we switched to the left tank
marking the time at 2 hours & 40 minutes. Another hour to Glasgow and we
planned to stop there for lunch. Coming into Glasgow from the southeast,
Fort Peck Lake is visible from quite a ways out and provides a good visual
reference. The airport itself is quite large even though the traffic when
we were there appeared to be very light. Knowing that this would be a
straight-in approach, we kept the fuel selector on the left to avoid any
feed across back into the empty right tank. As we taxied up to the fuel
pump and shut down, the line attendant was there and prepared to top off
the tanks. After he observed that our fuel selector was on the left tank,
we joked that we had a bet going as to what amount of fuel he would put in
the right tank. He replied quite confidently that he had been doing this
long enough to know that the number would be 18.5 gallons, however the tank
did not fill until indicating 19.7 gallons. These numbers were in keeping
with what we thought about the first day's flight and our total fuel burn
for that morning had been 29.9 or 8.3 gallons/hour. This information would
prove to be useful later when the tachometer began to act silly. |
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Ancil T. (TED) Davis
atdavis1@cox.net
Last Update 05/02/97